This invention relates to a vehicle diagnosis system, which makes a diagnosis of a vehicle upon a fault or the like in accordance with various diagnosis data in the vehicle.
For convenience of explanation, a typical example of conventional diagnostic systems will be described below by referring to the drawings. FIG. 8 is an explanatory view of a first prior art vehicle diagnosis system. FIG. 9 is an explanatory view of a second prior art vehicle diagnosis system.
In a typical example of the conventional vehicle diagnostic systems, as shown in FIG. 8, given vehicle 1 information is stored in a memory unit 2 in a vehicle 1, a connector in a single external unit 4 is connected to a connector 3 disposed on a given position in the vehicle 1, and the external unit 4 makes a diagnosis of a fault in the vehicle (for first prior art example, see Japanese Utility Model Public Disclosure No. HEI 2-8448 (1990)).
In the other typical example of the conventional vehicle diagnosis systems, as shown in FIG. 9, a connector 7 in a given wire communication device 6 instead of the single external unit 4 is connected to the connector 3 in 2 the vehicle 1 and the wire communication device 6 sends the data in the vehicle 1 to a given network 8 to make a diagnosis of a fault in the vehicle 1 (for second prior art example, see Japanese Patent Public Disclosure No. HEI 3-283842 (1991)).
In the above prior art, the external unit 4 or the wire communication device 6 is connected to the connector 3 in the vehicle 1. However, since there are in the vehicle 1 many dangerous devices for general users, it is very dangerous for the general user having no expert knowledge e to bring the connector 3 for diagnosis into connection with the external unit 4 or the wire communication device 6. Accordingly, the diagnosis connector 3 is usually disposed in an inner part of the vehicle 1. Consequently, it is not easy to connect the external unit 4 or the wire communication device 6 to the connector 3 in the vehicle 1. Although a user normally asks a skilled auto mechanic or other technical expert to make a diagnosis of a user""s 1 vehicle, it is dangerous and troublesome for the technical expert. This requires considerable time in working, increases a user""s waiting time for fault diagnosis and repairing, and incurs steep rises in the wages of the technical expert.
An object of the present invention is to provide a vehicle diagnosis system which can shorten the working time of a vehicle repair expert and ensure a user against risks.
In order to achieve the above object, a vehicle diagnosis system of the present invention comprises: a diagnosis data collector disposed in a vehicle for collecting given data on the vehicle equipment as data to be diagnosed through the vehicle network; a radio communication device disposed in the vehicle for at least transmitting the diagnosis data collected by the diagnosis data collector by means of a wireless manner; a controller for controlling the diagnosis data collector and the radio communication device; and an external diagnosis device disposed apart from the vehicle for receiving the diagnosis data transmitted in wireless mode from the radio communication device and diagnosing the vehicle in accordance with the diagnosis data.
The vehicle diagnosis system further comprises a time-clocking device. The controller may include a function of sending a command to the radio communication device to commence a radio transmission in accordance with clocking in the time-clocking device.
In the vehicle diagnosis system, the controller may include a function of sending a command to the radio communication device to commence a radio transmission in response to a signal from a given signaling device.
In the vehicle diagnosis system, the external diagnosis device may include a function of sending the result of the vehicle diagnosis to the radio communication device in the wireless. The radio communication device may include a function of receiving the result of the vehicle diagnosis sent in wireless mode from the external diagnosis device. The vehicle diagnosis system may be provided with a display for displaying the result information of the vehicle diagnosis received in wireless mode in the radio communication device.
The vehicle diagnosis system may further comprise an information concealable device for converting original signals corresponding to said diagnosis data collected in said diagnosis data collector into a given form of signals which any person except the person normally receiving it cannot understand. The external diagnosis device may include an information decoder for decoding the given form of signals converted from the diagnosis data sent from said radio communication device by the information concealable device into the original signals or given readable signals.
The information concealable device may utilize any one of passwords, fingerprint collating, voiceprint collating, eyeball blood vessel pattern collating, encipherment by means of a special operation, random numbers, coding decided beforehand between persons transmitting and receiving it, and passwords, operation and random numbers which change as time passes, or a combination of two or more of them.
Radio communication between the radio communication device disposed in the vehicle and the external diagnosis device may be carried out through a given large-scale network.